Wednesday, March 01, 2006

"A CIA employee assigned to provide daily intelligence briefs to the Vice President and Libby has handwritten notes indicating that Libby referred to 'Joe Wilson' and 'Valerie Wilson' by those names in conversation with the briefer on June 14, 2003," Fitzgerald wrote in a recently unsealed brief.

The filing suggests Cheney may have been present when Libby griped to his CIA briefer about agency officials slamming the veep in the press.

Seven officials have testified that Libby raised the CIA spy with them before columnist Robert Novak outed her.

Hmmmm...seven officials. Shall we play a game of "Who is pointing the finger at Scooter?" I'm in for Rove in a heartbeat if it saves his butt, but who else has "testified" that Libby raised the issue of Valerie Wilson with them? And who else might he have spoken to that has not yet been asked to give testimony? (WHIG, anyone?)

Will try and get my hands on the filing today, and will report back on any other interesting tidbits. One thing that leapt out at me in the NYDailyNews article was that "Fitzgerald also revealed that his investigators also confiscated computers."

My, that IS interesting, isn't it. But the question is, whose computers? From the office of the Vice President? From the Executive Office of the President? From a number of WHIG members?

Is this why Stephen Hadley was telling friends that he expected to be indicted back in October of last year? Was this the cause of Rove's nervousness? (Because the FBI marching into your office with a warrant and seizing the computer off your desk can be a bit nervewracking, I'm sure.) Is this what led to the testimony of two Rove aides -- and Rove's fourth G/J appearance?

No idea -- but one thing is certain, that disclosure alone tells me that Fitz's investigative team has been doing things by the book, no matter how much power the people being investigated wield on a day to day basis. And that alone makes me very happy indeed. I've seen what these sorts of investigators can do in piecing together disparate elements to weave an entire backstory into a case -- and I would never, ever want to be in their investigative crosshairs. Especially when they feel they have been lied to, mislead, and obstructed.

You should see what the white collar crime unit guys can do with a hard drive that has been "wiped." I saw a kiddie porn guy break down in tears at a hearing once just seeing what these folks had reconstructed for me out of a hard drive he tried to burn...literally, burn, as in fire. Imagine what they could do with back-up computer tapes and the like, along with a hard drive and a network as intricate as they must have at the White House.

The FBI doesn't take kindly to people flouting the law. And when those people happen to be public officials who take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws in the execution of their public duties...well, let's just say that is doubly offensive. All the more incentive to keep digging until you get to the bottom of the scheme, wouldn't you say?

Did I mention that the investigation is ongoing? Oh yeah, more coffee for me today. Lots more digging to do.

(Image via All Things Beautiful. Thanks to pollyusa for the reminder on this article last night -- I meant to get to it yesterday, but life interfered, so we get a Fitz fix this morning instead.)

UPDATE: By the way, if you have a moment this morning, please take the time to fill out the Blogads survey. They do this survey every year to get an idea of the sorts of people who read political blogs -- to help them sell advertisers on buying ads on blogs like this one. And those ads help Jane and I to defer the costs of running the blog, and perhaps buy ourselves some new pens, notebooks, Manolos and such. If you do fill out the survey, please consider answering "Firedoglake" for question #23. Thanks in advance for everyone who does this -- it's a great service for all the bloggers who do work on the political scene for advertisers to understand we have educated, savvy readers. (Thanks to C&L for the link on this.)